Creators and Created Beings in Twentieth-Century Latin American Fiction

Characters are made, scripted, and invented, but Creators and Created Beings in Twentieth-Century Latin American Fiction explores what occurs when literary creations become creators themselves. Representing Latin American fiction’s increasingly skeptical gaze in the early- to mid- twentieth century, these literary creators breach the metafictional frame in order to problematize themes including life and death, gender and sexuality, and technology. Drawing upon a diverse range of literary works by canonical and non-canonical authors including Jorge Luis Borges, Horacio Quiroga, Carlos Onetti, Julio Cortázar, María Luisa Bombal, Carlos Fuentes, Roberto Arlt, Juan José Arreola, Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg, Clemente Palma, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Pedro Angelici, this study excavates critical ontological and epistemological inquiries and delves into questions of identity, power, scientific knowledge, and the transformative nature of fiction.